I just watched the local news here in Tampa. They had a segment stating that we have a shortage of workers to work the farms. They interviewed the owner of a strawberry farm and he mentioned that due to the shortage of immigrants being allowed to enter this country, he doesn't have enough workers.

Guess the people on unemployment or that have dropped out of the workforce are too good to pick strawberries? Guess they would rather get the handouts!

I think we should round them up also and also to give those assignments to the people who have been on unemployment for longer than 8 weeks. Why should we pay them for 99 weeks to sit at home when there is plenty of work out there?

My brother-in-law is in construction. He is a feisty conservative, hired only citizens UNTIL he totally got fed up with the low-life, lazy laborers he was getting. Started hiring immigrants because they worked hard and had a good work ethic. I don’t think I’d hire urban welfare folks to work my orchards.

In some industries, those who hire illegal aliens can significantly undercut those who insist on hiring legal immigrants or Americans.

So the second group has a choice, they can hire illegals in order to compete, or they can lose all their business to the first group and go broke.

Individual business owners who do what they have to do to survive are not necessarily the villains of the piece. How exactly does their going out of business in favor of the other guy help the situation?

The answer is not to demonize those who adapt to what the market demands, but rather to enforce the laws so as to remove the competitive advantage of those who break them.

Growing up in Central Florida we’d get up at midnight during a frost to set smudge pots. In the Spring we would pick fruit on the weekends and after school. Worked 12 hour shifts during the fruit “run” too. People don’t do this work to raise families (some get stuck) but you use it as a building block. This article may have merit, but how low has our work ethic become? My daughter is 17 and works at a Pizza Hut. So what? She’s not going to make a career out of it!

23
posted on 04/14/2013 1:58:17 PM PDT
by poobear
(Socialism in the minds of the elites, is a con-game for the serfs, nothing more.)

I tell you what,those Mexican roofers can get that old roof off and a new one on in record time. When you have the fat white guys do it, it takes for frickin ever.

I got a painting bid from somebody who was from somewhere in SA and I got one from an overfed white guy and the foreign guy was 2K under the other one, got in here and got that wall paper off and the walls painted in record time. Worked from 8 am to 6 pm every night.

I have more house than energy, so when it gets really dusty I will call a cleaning service. 25 years ago it was black ladies who resented me for hiring them. These days it is Mexican ladies who can clean like nobody’s business.

I worked at an orange packing house one Christmas vacation in the early 70s. This was Polk County, FL. I was on what they called “set off” which was grabbing boxes of oranges off the belt and stacking them so they could be grabbed by the fork lift and moved into trailers or box cars.

It was hard work and I was talking to the guys who I worked with. I asked why they didn’t pick oranges. Was it harder work? The answer was no it was easier. Do you make less? No you make more picking.

Then why do you work here. All the people in the packing house were locals. Their only answer was “it is inside work”.

I think there was literally a dividing line. The locals did inside work and the migrants did outside labor.

30
posted on 04/14/2013 2:04:05 PM PDT
by yarddog
(Truth, Justice, and what was once the American Way.)

Unfortunately, I don’t think prison rules allow second shifts so they would need to leave in the middle of the afternoon unless they are on work release and that is not technically a prisoner. A six-month work visa would also greatly benefit immigrants who pick crops in fields, as they could come to America during the harvest seasons. I thought there was already a program like that in place actually.

The situation has to do with pay - and it always has... Farmers, assembly line factory owners, contruction owners - only want to pay the WAGE BUSTING price created by hiring illegal aliens. It has been proven time and again - if the pay is enough for an American to live a 1st. World lifestyle instead of 6 families to a house 3rd. World style then American workers will take the jobs... Every other excuse is a lie ...

A six-month work visa would also greatly benefit immigrants who pick crops in fields, as they could come to America during the harvest seasons. I thought there was already a program like that in place actually.

We've got millions of illegals here now who aren't doing it and we've had guest worker programs in place for all of my 50 years. Anybody who says we need more guest worker programs is a liar.

39
posted on 04/14/2013 2:14:31 PM PDT
by cripplecreek
(REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)

Just that the American worker today thinks that they should be treated and entitled to more. I grew up with the fundamentals of doing whatever it takes or am asked to do especially since I was being paid to do a job.

I believe migrant labor tends to work harder in reverse proportion to their numbers in a given area.

Here in CA where we have millions I've seen all kinds of migrant labor, from busy and quality minded (increasingly rare) to lazy, inexperienced and dishonest. There is no one word to characterize them.

I bet you’ve never seen the results of that yourself. Painters Poultry would get a bus load of urban blacks and haul them to the chicken house about 4AM. Within minutes of starting work, they all would be outside complaining of the smell. That would leave whites and Mexicans to do all the work. I personally know they perform badly milking cows, picking vegetables, etc. It wasn’t ability but attitude.

Good American blue collar and farm workers cannot compete because they want a lifestyle similar to all the rest of us. But with unlimited illegal aliens flooding the country - undercutting the wage base - then jobs for Americans disappear. I can tell that some posters just do not get it ... Illegal aliens live 3-4-5 families to a household - even with low wages they can live just fine this way. Especially when the women go to the welfare, food stamps, and health clinics and LIE on the applications saying that they are not married and that there is no wage earner in her household. Then they go apply under a false name and get some of the same benefits. So the next time some of you guys want to make excuses then remember you are approving a system that shuts out good Americans from earning a living wage. Do you want live 3-4-5 families to a household or you want that for your nephew or neice ? Ten years ago bricklayer wages and meat cutter packing plant wages dropped from around $18.00 an hour to $8.00. Is this what you want for America?

Watch the wild weather events. The shortage of farm workers may not be an issue. There may be a shortage of crops to harvest...and a shortage of food. As long as the government is willing to steal money from productive people and prop up the lazy with EBT, section 8, Obamaphones and subsidized healthcare, there is no incentive to work. When all that largess evaporates, the lazy will turn to rioting first to satisfy their needs and wants. Be prepared. It's not going to be pretty.

If you havent been out into the rural areas of the U.S. lately, youll be surprised to find how much theyve changed in the last twenty years. Where you once found trailer parks and shanty towns where poor whites and blacks lived and toiled in the surrounding fields, hog/chicken farms, and meat processing plants, youll now find those trailer parks and shanty towns filled with illegal Mexicans who now work these fields, and youll ask yourself, “Is this an American success story? Are these poor blacks and whites who no longer toil in the fields now living the American dream?” Where are these poor blacks and whites now living and what are they now doing for a living?” Have they learned skills that will now sustain themselves and their families?”

For the most part, these poor blacks and whites moved to the cities, are now living in government housing, and are spending their welfare checks on the drugs that illegal Mexicans bring into this country. And theyll live happily ever after only as long as they vote Democrat and you and I continue to work and pay taxes.

49
posted on 04/14/2013 2:36:40 PM PDT
by DJ Taylor
(Once again our country is at war, and once again the Democrats have sided with our enemy.)

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